ABSTRACT
In many respects the regular Mounted Infantry was an awkward mix of conflicting challenges and confounding variables. True, it was a regular army force with a clear requirement to facilitate the employment of mobile firepower on the imperial battlefield. Yet it also needed the capability to undertake a number of additional mounted roles if a cavalry force were unavailable, all the while still maintaining its operational and tactical flexibility to return to being foot infantry when required. Moreover, the regular Mounted Infantry’s impermanence and its extemporisation from so many infantry battalions potentially conspired against the forging of a military identity. Though resolutely infantry in origin, organisation and drill but with an evolving, albeit tentative, doctrine differing from its parent infantry regiments, the Mounted Infantry was a conundrum. If these factors were not challenging enough, the situation was complicated by the lack of clearly articulated understanding by senior officers of what was meant by ‘Mounted Infantry’ and what they wished from the force beyond this ill-defined concept of mobile firepower. 1 With such confounding variables, framed by the continued institutional discord with the cavalry, could the nascent Mounted Infantry forge a unique identity from which an esprit de corps might evolve? 2
Esprit de corps in the British Army is predicated on the regimental system, rightly considered the fundamental basis of the British Army. 3 It is integral to army discipline and by extrapolation, military efficiency and was considered essential in maintaining the effectiveness and ethos of both the army and its regimental system. 4 In turn the regimental system fostered loyalty, tradition and pride and thus contributed to many regiments’ reputations within the army and within society as a whole. 5 Hew Strachan has described the regimental system as a sub-culture that appears overtly uniform, though subtly and deeply differentiated. 6 So for the embryonic regular Mounted Infantry, a number of fundamental challenges questioned its ability to forge an identity and even assure its ongoing existence. Moreover, if there was no formalised regiment to belong to and no associated traditions and mores, as seemingly in the impermanent regular Mounted Infantry, then whence lay its esprit de corps ? This was a more
Moreover, as Wolseley remarked, ‘If a regiment has esprit de corps strongly developed throughout its ranks, that regiment will be efficient’. 8
However, before the question of the Mounted Infantry’s identity and esprit de corps can be examined further, the underlying nature of military identity requires brief clarification. Identity implies elements of both distinctiveness, marking out the group or individual as a separate entity to those external to the group, and sameness for members of the group, conferring allegiance and a sense of belonging rather than mere opportune grouping. 9 Charles Kirke, in his examination of the British Army as a social anthropological entity, considers that the concept of identity, together with functionality, tradition, philosophy, style of command and the behaviour of both individuals and the whole, all contribute to the evolution of a prevailing military organisational culture. 10 In evaluating the concept of identity, combining distinctiveness with sameness creates a sense of belonging on a number of levels, both formally and informally, from section, company and battalion levels through to branch or army as a whole. Conversely, identity and loyalty to one’s own unit at any organisational level risks promoting prejudice against those perceived as external to the group. Whilst pride in identity may result in harmless competition, excessive tribalism may encourage institutional prejudice causing detrimental rivalry, untoward conservatism and the stifling of innovation, this being particularly pertinent for a new arm such as the Mounted Infantry. 11 As indicated previously, friction arising from tribalism predicated on risk to status and way of life remained problematic for the regular Mounted Infantry in its dealings with the cavalry. Indeed, Sir John French, at his leaving dinner on relinquishing Aldershot Command, criticised bitterly those who had ‘done their best to dissipate false and misleading ideas [about cavalry regiments]’ – a less than thinly disguised criticism of Roberts and the Mounted Infantry’s champions and reflected prevailing tribal prejudices at that time. 12
Clearly such sociological attributes are challenging when applied to the regular Mounted Infantry. Opinions on the likelihood of establishing esprit de corps in the Mounted Infantry were polarised. In 1881, at a time when the British regular Mounted Infantry movement was still embryonic, a US army officer writing in the United Services Magazine observed prophetically, ‘being merely a provisional force, and, having no permanent status, they [Mounted Infantry] will have no esprit de corps to urge them on’. 13 He argued that the current Mounted Infantry model would lead to confusion in role and result ultimately in the evolution of an inferior and, by extension, worthless cavalry force. He concluded bleakly that despite being a force of great promise, such uncertainty of role and a corresponding lack of esprit de corps emanating from its state of impermanence would remain problematic for the Mounted Infantry and, in his opinion, this had already contributed to the reverses in the recent Transvaal Rebellion. This spectre of institutional mediocrity was perhaps understandable for an extemporised
a brisk editorial disclaimer rejecting his viewpoint. However credible a concern this might have appeared, the Mounted Infantry’s impermanence was not always considered a fatal weakness. A contrary view, still propagated years later in the Army Book for the British Empire , supported the Mounted Infantry’s ongoing impermanence as a means of maintaining its infantry-based identity, seen as its main strength, as opposed to preventing the creation of a military identity and flourishing of esprit de corps. 15
Esprit de corps , whilst usually evolutionary in nature, could at times be created artificially. In South Africa during 1899-1902, a modicum of ready-made esprit de corps was conferred on colonial Mounted Rifles by the appellation of eponymous titles, with 42 irregular horse units serving in South Africa and 20 bearing eponymously the names of their founding officers. 16 An example of this was the colonial Mounted Rifles formed by Major Michael Rimington of the 6th Dragoons. Known as Rimington’s Guides, they revelled in the informal name of ‘Rimington’s Tigers’ on account of the leopard skin worn as puggarees around their slouch hats that underlined their vaunted reputation as excellent horsemen, scouts and irregular cavalry. 17 However, with regular Mounted Infantry battalions in South Africa known generally by either their numerical allocation or occasionally in the case of companies, by referring to their parent infantry regiment, the opportunity for inculcating such identity and esprit de corps appears to be limited. Nevertheless, the esprit de corps of Mounted Infantry battalions in South Africa, particularly the initial eight battalions and Hubert Gough’s composite battalion, was considered excellent by contemporary sources. Here shared experiences contributing to developing loyalty within the formal and informal command structures encouraged an evolution of belonging over time that replaced history, tradition, spectacle and title and in turn promoted esprit de corps. 18 As the war progressed and further Mounted Infantry expansion was required, the importance of the identity of the parent infantry regiments diminished. In fact only the 25th Mounted Infantry battalion was comprised solely from one infantry regiment, the KRRC. 19 All others had a lineage derived from multiple regiments.
